HUSBAND GUILTY OF FIRST-DEGREE MURDER

Man, who witnesses say was abusive, shot his wife multiple times at Fifth and Broadway

San Diego 
An 85-year-old man who fatally shot his estranged wife on a downtown San Diego street corner was convicted Friday of first-degree murder.

It took jurors less than a day to find Joseph Gotell guilty of the killing, apparently rejecting a defense argument that his actions were influenced by dementia or some other mental impairment.

Gotell is expected to be sentenced July 5 before Superior Court Judge Peter Deddeh.

Attorneys in the case agreed that the defendant shot his 57-year-old wife, Deborah Gotell, multiple times the afternoon of May 14, 2011, at the corner of Fifth Avenue and Broadway.

Deputy District Attorney C.J. Mody told the jury that Joseph Gotell grabbed his wife and slammed her against the window of a T-Mobile store. He then pulled a revolver from his pants pocket and shot his wife repeatedly as her body slumped to the ground.

She was hit in the head, neck and arm.

When he finished shooting, Gotell slid the gun away from himself, the prosecutor said. It came to rest about 10 feet away in a planter.

Witnesses rushed to help Deborah Gotell, and security personnel from a nearby hotel detained her husband.

Police arrived a short time later and placed Joseph Gotell under arrest.

Witnesses testified during the trial that he abused his wife in the past and was often controlling. The couple had been married about five years.

One of the victim’s adult daughters testified that she received a voicemail message from Gotell after the couple had broken up and about six months before the shooting.

Gotell said in the message that if his wife did not come back to him, he would kill her.

Deputy Public Defender Kathleen Lee had urged the jury to consider Gotell’s mental state at the time of the shooting. Lee said he had dementia and had suffered two strokes.

She conceded that Gotell committed the shooting but argued that it was not first-degree murder.